


On Fire

by Frumpologist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Banter, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, HEA, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Hogwarts, Prison Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2020-12-27 19:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21123692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frumpologist/pseuds/Frumpologist
Summary: Hermione is arrested and forced to share a prison cell with Malfoy for the weekend. It’s the worst possible scenario with the best possible outcome.





	On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for Round 11 of Dramione Duets. While I was super intimidated by the prompts, I had such a fun time writing this piece, and I hope my duet partner enjoys it!
> 
> Many, many thanks to my powerhouse support team: To **mcal** for her brilliant encouragement and suggestions and for calming my nerves! And to **MrsRen** for calming my crazy paranoid ass down and letting me throw out all my terrible ideas until I found this one. Thank you for your alpha and beta support, lovelies — this story would be nothing without both of you. <3

“Please don’t make me do it, Hermione.”

Harry Potter’s wand was aimed towards her, though it was as halfhearted as one could imagine when their best mate was being an idiot in front of a world class Auror. Hermione, on the receiving end of The Chosen One’s ire, merely smirked and raised her chin.

“You’re mad!” Harry flicked the tip of his wand and a silver chain shot out of it. It coiled around Hermione’s wrist, and as if pleased, her smile deepened. “Why are you like this?”

“It wouldn’t be as much fun if I didn’t have you chasing after me,” Hermione said, marching slowly upon Harry and carefully avoided puddles of rain that separated them.

“If it was any other Auror, you’d be in Azkaban.” He tried to appear serious, but she could see the relief in his eyes; that it  _ was _ him after all, and not someone stricter, like Robards.

“Isn’t it lucky that you’re the Auror on call, then?” She raised one winged brow and allowed him to grab onto her elbow.

They left the centre of Oxford with a resounding crack, and instantly reappeared in the lobby of the Ministry. It was quiet for a late Friday night. The usual bustle was missing. Even the flying envelopes that usually littered the ceiling were gone. She’d never seen it like this, and she quite liked how peaceful it was.

“Do you want to tell me why you were in Oxford at midnight?” Harry yanked her along toward the lift. His tone was harsh and words ground out through his molars.

She couldn’t very well tell Harry, of course. He was a lovely friend, the very best of, but some things she had to keep close to her chest. So, she opted for a cheeky smile and shrugged her shoulders as he pressed the tip of his wand into a knob next to the lift door.

“Had some light reading to take care of,” she said vaguely, decidedly not daring to look Harry in the eyes for fear of the way he could see right through her.

“At the Bodleian, at midnight?” Merlin, she could hear the way his eyebrow raised, the skepticism was heavy in his tone.

“I’ve already read through the British Library,” she said as if that explained it all. Of course, she knew that it didn’t, but perhaps if she kept him in circles long enough, she wouldn’t have to answer him directly at all.

“I swear, when I go grey, it’s going to be entirely your fault,” Harry grumbled as the lift doors opened.

Damn; she’d been hoping that it wouldn’t be vacant. Hermione stepped into the lift and it groaned under their combined weight. It shuddered, the gate closed, and it zoomed backward before freefalling down, down, down to the very depths of the Ministry.

The silence between them was palpable, and Hermione was almost as frustrated with it as she was with the fact that Harry had arrested her at all. She could feel him behind her, his brilliant and ever-scrutinizing green eyes drilling a hole in the back of her head. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other and wincing at the feel of magical binds around her wrist, Hermione sighed. This was so not conducive to what she needed to get done; Harry would understand that—of course he would. She just needed to appeal to their relationship as best mates.

She turned to him, and his eyes narrowed behind round eyeglasses.

“Don’t even try it,” he warned her in a tired, already-over-it tone. “I don’t care what reasons you have to excuse the fact that for the third time in less than a month, you’ve seen fit to break into some Muggle place. Nor, do I care to know how it is that I’m always the Auror on call.”

He leveled her with that  _ very  _ Harry Potter stare, and Hermione swallowed. Right, so he’d caught onto some of the finer details of her plan. Bollocks.

“What if I told you that it was a matter of life or death?” She raised her chin at his skeptical glare and returned it with one of her own.

“There is nothing in a library that’s life or death, Hermione.” A throaty chuckle, exasperated and tired, filled the space between them. “Some things never change.”

She spun around, pursed lips and annoyingly put out.

This was precisely why she didn’t share her plan with him in the first place. And, admittedly, it would have been much easier having him on her side.

For one, she wouldn’t be spending precious hours in a prison cell at the bowels of the Ministry.

* * *

“You’ve got to be bloody kidding me,” Hermione groaned, and tried to shrug her elbow out of Harry’s light grasp. She turned to narrow her eyes at her best friend, who looked shockingly alight with barely controlled glee. “You’re not seriously putting me in there with  _ him _ .”

“Too right I am.” Harry eased open the cell door and gently shoved Hermione inside. “All the trouble you two have caused me; you can rot in there for the weekend and sort out your priorities.”

“Harry.” His name left her in the same strict manner that she’d always used at school to get her way; but unlike at school, Harry didn’t even blink at her tone. “I can’t stay here with him all weekend. I can’t. What about my Floo call? I’ll post bail for the night.”

A derisive snort issued from the corner of the small cell and she couldn’t bring herself to look back at that familiar face as her hands curled around the cell bars. Harry frowned, shrugged a shoulder, and tapped his wand on the lock.

“Think of it as a consequence of your actions,” he said quietly, eyes flicked over her shoulder for a brief second, and then landed on her again. “You can’t just go around following your own vigilante rules. This isn’t Hogwarts, Hermione. There are laws, and war hero or not, you’re expected to abide by them.”

“Harsh, Potter.”

She refused to turn toward his voice, even if she did agree with his sentiments. Harry’s hand rested on hers around the bars of the cell, and he offered her a tentative, genial smile that she would hex off his face if he hadn’t taken her wand.

“Harry,” she whispered, a desperate sound on her lips as she gripped the metal and pulled herself flush against it. “This is serious, Harry. I absolutely cannot stay here with him all weekend.”

“What could possibly go wrong?” A stupid smirk overtook his kind face and she’d never been more frustrated that Harry Potter was her best friend. “He doesn’t even have a wand. The worst he can do is bore you to death by listing off all his Sacred Twenty Eight ancestors.”

“You’re a complete wanker, Harry Potter.”

He let go of her hand and offered her a firm nod. “Hermione. Malfoy. Enjoy your weekend.”

* * *

“You know, the longer you keep your prissy little nose in the air like that, the more chance it has of staying that way.”

Hermione turned toward the blond bane of her existence and scowled. “You know, the longer you keep that arrogant big nose of  _ yours  _ in the air like  _ that _ , the more chance it has of being broken.”

Of all the things she expected in response, a dark chuckle was not one of them. Malfoy sat on the cot opposite her with his back firmly against the wall. His legs were fully outstretched in front of him, until he dragged one up at an angle and rested his elbow on top of it.

“You’re pleasant this evening,” he said, as if she hadn’t just threatened to punch him in the face. “I take it Oxford didn’t have what you were looking for?”

“What was your first clue?” Waspish, her eyes narrowed as dangerously as her tone snapped. “By the time I tried to apparate out, Harry had wards in place to keep me there. I don’t know how long I can keep him from finding out about—”

“Well, you’re going to have to fucking figure it out, because I’ll be damned if Saint Potter is involved in my personal life.” His famous sneer graced his face and Hermione rolled her eyes on instinct. “He got me in Knockturn.”

Hermione pulled her feet close to her body and rested her hands where her ankles crossed. “What are we going to do, Malfoy? We can’t… just stay like this.”

“I don’t know.” He swept a hand through his hair and leveled her with a piercing stare. “Does yours burn?”

Her heart hammered in her throat. For weeks, she’d pushed it out of her mind, ignored the thrum of it through her veins. But now? Sitting so close to him, left alone in his presence and stuck under his heated eyes—god, it was all she could feel. The slight burn of a scar just shy of her ear, under a bushy mane of curls, reminded her just why Oxford had been so important. She brought her fingers to it and winced at the fiery jolt that flickered through her.

“Constantly,” she admitted quietly, dropping her eyes to the cold, stone ground between them. “But still no desperate desire to shag?”

Her eyes met his the moment the snort left his throat. He wore a playful smirk on his face as he shook his head. “Still not that,” he confirmed. “I told you, they don’t work that way.”

“Well, how the bloody hell should I know how it works, Malfoy?” Her arms shifted to cross her chest and her fingers dug into the soft skin under her arm. “It’s not like there’s a readily available How-To Guide anywhere.”

Malfoy cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed in her direction. His annoyance rippled through the air; she could feel it in her gut. “You could trust me when I tell you the information I was able to garner from my mother after this was—discovered.”

“Hah.” She watched his face scrunch up as her skepticism hit him full force. Good, it wasn’t just a one-way connection. “How could you possibly think I could ever trust you?”

“Because, Granger,” he ground out through clenched molars, “a soul bond won’t allow me to lie to you.”

Hearing it out loud— _ soul bond _ —sent her heart racing. It had nothing at all to do with the way that his eyes refused to leave hers.  
  


* * *

For the first few hours that she’d been locked in the cell with Malfoy, Hermione half-expected that Harry would appear, laugh at her expense, and let her out of the cell to go about her weekend. Unfortunately, no such benevolence from her friend happened and so, as time dragged on and on, she began to realize that she was really going to be stuck with Malfoy for two days.

_ Alone _ .

“Could you practice deep breathing?” Malfoy’s voice sliced through her precious silence as he pushed himself from his cot and stood in the center of their cell. “I can feel your irritation and it’s grating on my nerves.”

“Well, your mere existence is grating on my nerves, so maybe you should practice yoga and get the hell over it.”

She didn’t mean to snap at him, but crickey he could get on her nerves something fierce. Hermione watched as he paced across the measly floor space, arms swinging out. His arm span was long enough to touch both of their cots if he really wanted to try. Somehow, having that confirmed made her feel even more confined. Nothing but a few small steps existed between where Malfoy would sleep and where she would likely toss and turn until Harry finally saw sense and let her out of the cell.

“It does no good to just sit there and stew.” He raised an arm over his head and bent his elbow with a hand. Stretching up on the balls of his feet, Hermione watched as his white cotton shirt lifted over his abdomen and revealed a taut expanse of skin.

She flushed and turned her gaze away.

“Well, that was interesting,” Malfoy said quietly. She refused to look or to ask as pink continued to dust her cheeks. “I can practically feel the embarrassment, Granger. What gives?”

Hermione shook her head. No sodding way was she going to admit to him that she’d gotten a little turned on by the slightest glimpse at what he’d always hidden under his robes.

No. Sodding. Way.

  
  


* * *

  
Draco Malfoy snored.

Not loud. He didn’t sound like a nesting hippogryph, but he made little breathy noises in his sleep that kept her awake. It was endearing at first, almost melodic in its rhythm. But, after a while, all it did was keep her awake and remind her that she was being forced to sleep so close to him.

It left the phrase ‘sleep with one eye open’ lingering in her thoughts as it circled the neverending drain of her mind.

Swallowed in darkness, she stared at the ceiling with her arms behind her pillow. She’d tried counting sheep, house elves, chocolate frogs. Nothing worked.

And still, Malfoy continued to sleep peacefully.

She grumbled out loud, hoping it would wake him. It didn’t.

So instead, she grabbed the pillow from behind her head, and launched it across the room towards his face. The bastard merely pulled it towards his chest and rested his chin against it.

Hermione was going to kill him with her bare hands.

* * *

  
Breakfast, including tea, greeted her early in the morning when the sun shone through the small window in their cell. Hermione was sure it was a bewitched window, but all the same, she was glad that it was Saturday—only two more nights with Malfoy. A house elf fetched them to wash and use the loo and then they were left alone with each other once again.

Hermione kept herself busy making up the cot. She swiped her pillow from Malfoy’s cot, fluffed it up as best as she could, and then sat down on the edge with her ankles crossed.

“What do you suppose Potter means by locking us in the same cell together for the weekend?”

She lifted a shoulder and dropped it as she watched him wrestle with the edge of his sheets. “He thinks he’s being clever.”

Malfoy’s body twitched with a laugh and he gave up trying to get the corner of the sheet tucked under the mattress of his cot. “Just what the world needs, Scarhead: the big-headed Auror.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “He’s not big-headed. He’s just… Harry.”

“And you’re sure he doesn’t know something about our soul bond?” Malfoy sat directly across from her and mimicked the way her ankles were crossed. The muscles in his arms stood out as his hands curled into the mattress. She shook her head and chewed on her lip. “We’ll just try again when we’re out of here on Monday.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, the word barely leaving her lips.

That’s what she wanted, right? Sure, she had plans for a life with Ron. Eventually, when they were grown up and ready for one another. One day. And Malfoy—he was planning on pursuing Astoria one day, he’d said. His parents approved the match and he’d called her a gorgeous, wicked witch, hadn’t he? So, even if she wanted to understand their soul bond before they finally found a way to break it, it just wouldn’t work.

Would it?

“Granger?”

Hermione’s eyes snapped toward him and lost the fuzzy haze around the edges as she found his eyes. His lips tugged down at the corners, and his eyes weren’t quite as dark as she’d always thought them to be. A chunk of his hair fell over his forehead, messier than what she was used to, and his arms, those taut muscles and the way his white shirt showed the slightest tan of his skin. All things she’d never noticed before.

“Granger?”

She sucked her lips between her teeth and clenched her hands harder against the mattress of her bed.

“Granger.” His voice was closer; she hadn’t seen him move. The bed dipped next to her and she stiffened next to him, closing her eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you?” His hand swatted her hair behind her shoulder and then rested there. “What the hell is… this feeling?”

“You’re making me feel  _ things _ . You have to stop making me feel things.” Heat flushed through her, starting at her chest and rising until it lit her face in the most embarrassing blush.

Malfoy’s knuckles touched her cheek and ran across the bone delicately. His stare was intense, dark, and Hermione puckered her lips to keep her breath from leaving her in a whoosh. “Oh,” he said as his lips raised in a lopsided grin. “Not exactly what I was expecting.”

She stole a greedy breath through her nose and steeled her nerves. “Neither was I. And yet, here we are.”

“This doesn’t change anything though?” Malfoy’s thumb stroked the side of her face and down to her jaw until it stopped just under her chin. When she didn’t answer right away, he lifted her chin and raised a pale eyebrow. “Granger?”

“Of course not.” The words left her far more confidently than she felt. Her fingers were aching under the strain of her clenched fists. “That would be ridiculous.”

“Would it?” 

He was closer; the perfect bow of his lips mere inches from hers. His eyes flicked down and up again, and Hermione held her breath as her soulscar sang under Malfoy’s attention. As if he could sense it, and the thrill she felt, his fingers moved just behind her ear and brushed the silvery scar that had appeared out of nowhere after the Battle of Hogwarts. She drew in a sharp breath and watched Malfoy’s tongue swipe along his bottom lip.

“Oh, Granger, this is such a bad idea,” he whispered, and then his lips were on hers.

Softly, testing, before his hand wrapped around the back of her neck and he deepened the kiss the very instant she began to kiss him back. She moaned into it, and he swallowed it down, and she was absolutely on  _ fire _ at the feel of his tongue against hers and his fingers curling into the roots of her hair.

It was perfect.

The slight nip of his teeth against her lip. The warm breath that fanned across her face when he pulled back to look in her eyes, before he pressed his lips over hers again and set a bruising pace that she could hardly keep up with. Her hands finally unclenched and she laid them flat against his chest. The thud of his heart against her palms pulsed through her.

Kissing Draco Malfoy was pure nirvana.

* * *

She could have gone on kissing Malfoy all night. However, the hyperactive little house elf that Harry had instructed to watch over them for the weekend wouldn’t allow such a thing. Of course, when Hermione finally got out of Draco’s proximity, her head cleared and she was able to breathe. And panic.

He was an exceptionally good kisser, that was for sure. But, this wasn’t what they wanted. They’d gone months trying to find information—often illegally—in order to break the bond they’d accidentally discovered after the war. And now? She couldn’t possibly allow herself to believe that this would be a good idea when they were out of the cell.

Malfoy had plans. She had plans. Neither of their plans included the other.

Unless.

The thrum of want for him was strong. It crashed through her in a way she’d never felt for anyone, not even Ron or Viktor. Every dip and edge of his body was one she wanted to explore, with her fingers or her tongue; she wasn’t picky.

And yet, Malfoy assured her that the soul bond wouldn’t interfere with any sexual desire. Hell, when she’d first panicked about it, they had both laughed.  _ ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if that was the case?’ _ she’d said. And Malfoy had rolled his eyes and nodded,  _ ‘absolutely ridiculous.’ _

Here they were, then. Even as she watched him crawl into his bed, she wasn’t laughing. He held open the cover and scooted back against the wall. There wasn’t much space between him and the edge of the bed, and Hermione worried her lip between her teeth as she considered her options.

She hadn’t slept the night before. Was that her soul bond? That was the problem; she just didn’t know where her heart ended and the soul bond began.

“Granger, we spent an entire afternoon snogging in your bed,” he told her waspishly. “It’s bloody cold in here and if you’re not going to crawl in—”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “You’re an absolute nightmare of a wizard, did you know that? Classic only child.”

She crawled into the bed next to him and allowed him to pull her close. Her nose nuzzled the hollow of his throat as he wrapped her in the blanket and then ran his hand down her side.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing, and yet here I am getting my way.” The smirk on his face was ridiculously proud, and she wanted to wipe it off. Before she could, however, his fingers were under her chin, lifting her face to his.

Lost again in his languid kiss, she entirely forgot to be annoyed with him.

“You want me,” he whispered against her cheek as his hand made a sneaky trip down to the band of her trousers. “I can feel it. Can you feel my desire for you, too?”

How to distinguish between his desire and her own—that was the trick. Before their kiss, her desire felt like fire, but now, without even realizing, there was a cool, whispering breeze around the heat. As if it were fanning the flames and giving them life.

“Yes,” she answered finally, reveling in the way her body fit against his.

“What do we do about it, then?” His hand stroked her hip, fingers dipping below the band of her trousers to tease the skin they found. “Maybe it’s a good idea to just… bang one out.”

Hermione couldn’t help the laugh that ripped from her. So crass, and yet, it did wicked things to her core. Still, her nerves about the bond persisted and she stayed his fingers with a steady hand.

“How can we know for sure it’s not the bond?” She asked, finding herself short on breath as his lips traced a lazy line from her ear to her lips.

“I’ve told you,” he said, a harsh sigh lingering on his lips despite that his hands were soft against her body, “soul bonds don’t behave that way.”

“Then tell me how they behave.” She placed her hand on his chest and pushed him back so that she could think and breathe and gain her bearings, because she was half a second away from getting utterly lost in him.

“Soul bonds are found in witches and wizards who make a powerful magical match; super rare, but never influence sexual desire.” She looked at him with a skeptical brow raised, and he smirked down at her with a glint in his eye. “Otherwise, pureblood marriages would end in divorce, since purebloods are rarely allowed to choose their own spouse.”

“Disgusting,” she breathed, though her nerves were relieved. “So what happens to purebloods then? They just ignore their soul bonds?”

“That’s precisely what we were going to do, isn’t it?” His hand traveled down to her arse and palmed the flesh with a smile on his face. “And I’m really fucking glad you’re considering otherwise.”

* * *

  
  


Sunday passed much like Saturday. Kissing, touching, exploring. Meals and house elf supervision to the bathroom. Hermione even managed to find the prime location to watch Malfoy as he stretched his body out in the middle of their cell.

She leaned against the cell door, the bars digging into her shoulder as she appreciated the way his muscles flexed under his shirt. Her chin was tilted to the side, affording her a delicious view of his rear end, when Malfoy turned and caught her.

The blush on her cheeks deepened as his smirk rose on his face. He approached her slowly then, his tall and lithe frame crowding her against the cell door. He ducked down and pressed his lips to hers, but it wasn’t soft or searching like they’d been all day.

Instead, he took what he wanted from her. Pushing her for more as his hands moved to her waist and her ribcage and back down again. He felt everywhere all at once as he peeled her shirt—and she allowed it. She wanted it, wanted  _ him _ , and she didn’t want to stop him as his lips kissed a path down the valley of her chest.

Her clothes were gone in seconds. His trousers around his knees in record time. Malfoy spun her around and yanked her hips back. His fingers slipped to the apex of her thighs and the length of him ground against the cleft of her arse.

Her hands wrapped around the cold cell bars, and Hermione dropped her forehead to them as she jerked against his hand.

“Fuck, Granger,” he growled, swiping his thumb across her sensitive bundle of nerves. “You’re so ready for me, aren’t you?”

Her only agreement was a strangled noise in the back of her throat. His fingers teased her towards climax, but before she could chase that desperate release, Malfoy pulled his hand away from her folds. He wrapped his fingers into her hair, tugged her head back and guided himself in one quick movement straight into her sex.

For a moment, neither of them moved or made a sound. The feel of him stretching her paled in comparison to the way her soul sparked like an electrical storm, as if lightning crashed through her and thunder shook the very platelets in her veins. It was the single, most beautiful sensation she’d ever felt.

And after what seemed like an eternity of her body adjusting to him, Malfoy pulled himself out of her slick heat and slammed back in with the sexiest groan she’d ever heard. His pace was punishing then, fast and hard and entirely disregarding that her chest was pressed through the cell bars.

“Fuck, I’m on  _ fire _ .” One hand curled around her hip and held her so she couldn’t pound her arse against him. “I’m not going to last. Too bloody good.”

She shook with the force of his thrusts. Her moans, his name, and a string of broken praises, echoed down the corridor outside their cell. Hermione was quickly reaching her climax and when his fingers dug into the roots of her hair, she clenched around him.

The hand on her hip moved to her clit.

Hermione cried out, sang his name, arched her back, and crashed over the precipice of her orgasm.

He followed quickly; four rough thrusts as her walls tightened around him, and he was panting her surname like a prayer.

They stayed like that for so long after, Hermione wasn’t sure who was holding who up anymore. One thing was certain, though: every instinct she’d had to sever their bond was gone.  
  


* * *

As his arms wrapped around her, he complained about the sheer volume of her hair, and Hermione grinned against his throat. Because some things would never change.

“What are we going to do, Malfoy?” she asked, tilting her head back to catch his gaze.

“I was thinking I could fuck you into the mattress until morning.” His hands wandered down to her arse and pulled her body flush against his.

Her fingers danced along the tight muscles of his back, and she was torn between a laugh and a moan as he ground his erection against her. “About the bond, you prat. What are we going to— _ oh _ !”

Malfoy’s lips attached to her throat and his teeth grazed her sensitive skin. His breath in her ear drove her wild; the heat of it sipping straight to her core.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow,” he said, twisting their bodies so that she was straddling his waist. His hands rose from her hips to her breasts, and he quirked his lips at the sharp breath she stole. “Let’s see if we can get along before we decide anything.”

She rocked against him, surprised when he positioned himself at her entrance and groaned when he sheathed himself inside her.

“I don’t even like you,” she breathed, even as her hips began to gyrate over him.

He snorted, pinching one of her budding nipples between his fingers. “You like me, Granger.” Malfoy growled as her nails bit lightly into his chest. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be getting yourself off on my cock.”

Hermione wasn’t present enough to dwell on it. The way he spoke to her, the way his eyes spurred her on to chase her orgasm, sent her mind spiraling far more than the thought of actually, genuinely  _ liking _ Draco Malfoy.

She lost herself to him, and it wasn’t until sleep nearly claimed her that she agreed to join him for dinner after all.

* * *

The sound of loud clanking disrupted the first good night’s sleep she’d had in prison. Hermione lifted her head from Malfoy’s pillow, hair stuck to the side of her face, and found piercing green eyes staring at her curiously from the door of their cell.

“Oh, god, Harry.” Hermione smacked Malfoy on the arm and proceeded to push at him until he moved, grumbled, and finally popped an eye open. “Malfoy—Harry’s here!”

“This looks... “ Harry ran a hand through his hair and his eyes followed Hermione as she dashed around the small cell with a blanket wrapped around her. “Like a very interesting story and something you’ll have to tell me about over dinner tonight.”

“What?” Hermione bounced behind the sheet and snapped the button of her jeans into place. “No, I can’t do dinner tonight, I’m sorry.”

Harry blinked slowly, glanced to Malfoy, and back to her again. “Tomorrow then, if your schedule allows. I hadn’t realized you had so much time to make plans between when I arrested you and today.”

Hermione dropped the sheet from around her body when her shirt was pulled down. She patted down her hair and tried like mad to get her riotous curls under control. Malfoy, on the other hand, lazily stood from the bed in only his boxers and took his time pulling on his wardrobe. She wanted to groan and throw things at him and also burrow into the cell cot and never look Harry in the eye again.

“It’s a long story, Harry,” Hermione said, relieved when Malfoy finally appeared beside her in front of Harry.

They shared a long look, one Hermione couldn’t figure out, and then Harry led them from the cell and through the depths of the Ministry.

“Look, I don’t know that I want to know what led to…  _ this _ , exactly.” Harry turned a corner and led them toward the lift. “But, whatever it is, breaking into places or purchasing illegal potions ingredients on the black market is off limits.”

Hermione nodded emphatically and elbowed Malfoy in the ribs.

“Oi, alright, alright,” he hissed at her side, his eyes narrowed at the back of Harry’s head. “Listen, Scarhead—”

“Next time.” Harry spun around and both Hermione and Malfoy stopped dead in their tracks. Hermione knew that look in Harry’s eye; he was on the brink of throwing them back into the cell. “Next time I catch either of you doing something so stupid again, I won’t just keep you here for the weekend. I’ll lock you in Azkaban for a night.”

Hermione glanced to Malfoy. They hadn’t really discussed what came next, but she felt sure that she wasn’t ready to break this soul bond just yet. She offered him a hesitant smile and then flicked her gaze back to Harry.

“There won’t be a next time, Harry.”

“Good.” His stare flitted between them and he gave them a tight nod before turning around again.

As they followed Harry to the lift, Malfoy’s hand tangled with hers.


End file.
